Arts Bombast: David Wojnarowicz’ Rimbaud in New York Series

Why do all the cool New York artists (see: Ginsburg, Patti Smith, and Wojnarowicz) love Rimbaud so much? Oh, that’s right, because he’s the shit. Below, a couple violent verses for you from Mes petites amoureuses:

David Wojnarowicz was an experimental photographer, painter, writer and filmmaker in NY during the ’80s. He was also in a weird/fantastic band called 3 Teens Kill 4. Wojnarowicz related to Arthur Rimbaud in many ways- as a poet, an outcast, a queer man, and ultimately, as an artist who died too young. This series of photos is some of Wojnarowicz’ earliest works, and it features someone (himself? a friend? many people?) rocking Rimbaud masks, thus transferring that identity to anonymous men in urban, seedy, late ’70s NYC. Enjoy: